SAT, ACT Scores Up, But Racial Gaps Remain

In what has become an annual barometer of high school achievement, the
release of results from the two major college-admissions tests showed
overall improvements in 1996.

But the results announced last month continued to reveal racial and
gender discrepancies in performance on both the ACT Assessment and the
SAT. Some educators also expressed concern about the newly "recentered"
scores for the SAT I: Reasoning Test, the official name of the most
widely used college-entrance exam.

This year's SAT is the first to reflect the recalibration of scores
that re-established 500 as the average on the test's scale of 200 to
800 points.

Though some experts argue that the new scale does not provide an
accurate measure of performance, the New York City-based College Board,
which sponsors the SAT, defends the modification.

The shift became necessary because it had become harder to compare
and interpret scores as more students took the test each year and the
average national score fell below the midpoint of the scale, College
Board officials say.

Gender, Racial Gaps

The average math SAT score among the roughly 1.1 million seniors who
took the test this year was 508, up from 506 last year; the average
verbal score was 505, a 1-point increase. All previous scores have been
recentered to allow comparisons.

But gaps persist between the genders in the math section and between
racial and ethnic groups in both sections of the SAT. The average
verbal score of women rose 1 point from last year, to 503, and their
average math score increased by 2 points, to 492. Men averaged 507 and
527 on verbal and math respectively, up 2 points each from last
year.

White students scored an average of 526 on the verbal and 523 on the
math, while black students scored an average of 434 on the verbal
section and 422 on the math portion; and Native American students
averaged 483 on the verbal and 477 on the math.

Students in the three categories of Hispanic or Latino backgrounds
also lagged behind the average on both the math and verbal
sections.

And Asian-American students scored an average of 496 on the verbal,
while surpassing all other ethnic groups with an average of 558 on the
math.

From the survey of course-taking included in the SAT, College Board
officials could point to one encouraging sign that crossed racial
boundaries: Students are taking tougher classes. Academic coursework as
measured by years of study has increased for all groups over the past
10 years, officials said.

"More students are looking for harder work, and wanting to be better
prepared," said Donald M. Stewart, the president of the College
Board.

Debate on Recentering

The recentering of the SAT scores has been contentious since it was
announced in 1994.

The move to make the average score 500 for both verbal and math
obscured the fact that verbal scores have repeatedly lagged behind
math, said Diane S. Ravitch, a senior research scholar at New York
University in New York City and a senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution in Washington.

"It makes it seem now as though poor student performance in verbal
is the same as fine student performance in math," she said. "They
basically destroyed the idea of standards by what they've done in the
verbal area."

Mr. Stewart disagreed, arguing that the realignment was
necessary.

"We reflect today's college-going population, not the population of
1941," he said, referring to the year when the scale was last
centered.

"Our instrument is sound," Mr. Stewart added. "It had nothing to do
with making anyone look good."

ACT Also Up

Administrators of the ACT Assessment Test also reported slightly
higher scores this year, from a national composite average of 20.8 in
1995 to 20.9 this year, on a scale of 1 to 36.

This year's results for the 925,000 high school graduates who took
the test marked the fourth year in a row that scores have
increased.

While the average scores for men remained steady from last year at
21.0, women improved one-tenth of a point, to 20.8. Native American
test-takers showed the most noteworthy improvement, increasing their
test-participation levels and boosting their average scores over the
past four years from 18.1 in 1992 to 18.8 in 1996.

A steadily increasing number of students also report taking a "core
curriculum" in high school, to which ACT, Inc., the Iowa City-based
company that sponsors the test, attributes higher scores.

"The more coursework students take, the more committed they are, and
their parents and guidance counselors, to moving to a higher level,"
said ACT Inc. President Richard L. Ferguson.

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